Today in Conservative Media: Amnesty Don Strikes Again

Conservatives had much to say about about conflicting reports over President Trump’s willingness to coorperate with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on DACA legislation. At National Review, Fred Bauer wrote that Trump is on the verge of splitting the Republican base in two:

While the exact details of such an agreement remain unclear, it seems as though the White House is seriously contemplating a trade of “border security” for enacting DACA (or perhaps an expanded version of it) by statute. In comments earlier today, President Trump insisted on the importance of “massive border security” in exchange for a DACA bill. If, however, the White House insists merely on “border security” in exchange for DACA, it puts Republican members of Congress in a very tough spot. ...

In the short term, allowing Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to set immigration policy affords the president a temporary high. There’s the sizzle of headlines, the cloying praise from his political opponents, the charge of “getting something done.” But there are long-term costs to alienating elements of the base that brought him to power. In our polarized contemporary politics, disappointing even a quarter of a party’s core supporters could have major political implications.

Commentary’s John Podhoretz remarked on Trump’s seeming betrayal of the Breitbart crowd, which prompted Breitbart to run headlines calling Trump “Amnesty Don” on Wednesday night.

For Breitbart, accusing someone of supporting “Amnesty” is tantamount to calling him a child molester, so negative is its understanding of the word. That is why a White House spokesman declared afterward that Trump “will not be discussing amnesty.” But in the next sentence, the spokesman said Trump would consider “legal citizenship over a period of time.” That, my friends, is the very definition of amnesty, pure and simple. ...

I like this plan, by the way. But let’s face it. With this deal, Trump has betrayed his core followers and a significant campaign promise—the most startling such turnabout since the first President Bush went back on his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge.

At Breitbart, Joel Pollak wrote that Trump is “getting rolled” by Democrats and can’t hope to achieve the successes Bill Clinton did with triangulation. “After losing Congress in 1994, Bill Clinton famously undercut his Republican opponents by adopting many of their policies,” he wrote. “Trump may hope to use similar triangulation to improve his approval ratings and weaken opposition to his policies on tax reform and repealing and replacing Obamacare. But Clinton always had the backing of the mainstream media, even when he was impeached. Trump can expect no favors from them, nor from the Democrats.”

At RedState, Kimberly Ross argued that Schumer and Pelosi’s willingness to negotiate with Trump marked a second, less-noticed betrayal. “It does not matter whether the agreement was a compromise or a complete forsaking of either side’s previously stated positions,” she wrote. “Two leaders in the Democratic Party are colluding with one of the worst human beings to ever enter the world of politics! Trump’s flip-flop? That we expected. The Schumer-Pelosi betrayal? This should be the news.”

In other news:

Conservatives criticized both Bernie Sanders’ single-payer bill and his new prominence as a popular leader in the Democratic Party. “The Bernie revolution has arrived,” the Daily Wire’s Paul Bois wrote. “Once considered a fringe socialist crazy with no chance of gaining ground in the Democratic Party, the populist socialist Bernie Sanders has introduced a single-payer “Medicare For All” health care bill that has been endorsed by 15 senators, meaning it may create a possible litmus test for candidates hoping to gain the nomination in 2020.” Rush Limbaugh assessed the results of a Zogby Poll showing Sanders leads the pack among potential Democratic presidential contenders in 2020.

Crazy Bernie, as of now, is in the pole position. Is Crazy Bernie 80? Is he 80 years old or close to it? If he’s not, he’s gonna be by 2020, and he may be now. So the Democrat front-runner, everybody acknowledges Crazy Bernie is 80 years old. Seventy-six. See? I knew it. Even when I think I might be wrong, I’m right. I said he’d be 80 certainly by the time 2020 came around, 79. Close enough. This is a poll that comes from Zogby. It’s the Zogby analytics survey. ...

Here are the actual numbers. Bernie Sanders at 27%, Joe Bite Me at 17%, Fauxcahontas at 12%, Zuckerberg at 7, Senator Kamala Harris — she’s considered to be a savioress. The radical left thinks that Kamala Harris is the answer. She is at 6%. Kirsten Gillibrand, senator from New York, 3%. Fredo Cuomo’s brother Andrew is at 3%. He’s the governor of New York. Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota is at 1%. And there’s The Punk, Terry McAuliffe, bringing up the rear. Tim Kaine didn’t make the list. Is Kaine running? Anyway, that’s the list in the Zogby poll. Bernie Sanders, the front-runner.